The technology of electronic image sensors has continued to improve and yield products of increasingly higher resolution and data rates. In comparison, current video display technology lags behind and is further limited by standard industry formats. As a result, current display technology does not take full advantage of the capabilities of the high performance image sensors or uses techniques that are inefficient and not cost effective.
For example, to accomplish digital zooming, all of the image data is read from a high resolution image sensor, digitized by analog-to-digital converters, and stored in a memory. Subsequently, the memory is addressed and accessed to read a selected portion of the image data to compose the zoomed picture on a standard resolution display. Therefore, a penalty is assessed for using a high resolution image sensor in speed, cost and size of the system.
Panning is a typical camera operation in which the camera is moved so that the field of view is changed along the horizontal or vertical axis. This camera move is often used to convey a better sense of the surroundings or a sense of height or depth. In surveillance applications, limited horizontal panning is often used to widen the scope of each camera's surveillance territory. Because actuation of the video camera mount is typically used to pan the camera, it is subject to wear and mechanical failures. Therefore, it would be beneficial to take advantage of the high performance and full capabilities of electronic image sensors to achieve panning without the need for mechanical control and actuation.